Reader: If They Don't Want Illegal Pete's in Fort Collins, I'll Take One at Southlands

Since he opened his first store in Boulder almost twenty years ago, Pete Turner has been serving up big burrito as well as lots of community support for neighbors, musicians and other good causes. But recently, Illegal Pete's has also been the source of plenty of food for thought: A group in Fort Collins, where Turner will open his seventh store next month, charges that the name is racist, and has asked that Turner change the name of his business. Should he?

Close to 300 people have weighed in since I wrote about the controversy Friday.

Says Liz:

I say change the name to Illegal Pedro's.

Says Andrea:

Yes, please change it. The owner is actually much more thoughtful and pro-Latino than the people waving a flag for privilege on this thread. Still, it is absolutely "counter culture" to be "illegal" today. The connotation is much different now. Change it.

And Pamela doesn't care what they call it -- so long as an Illegal Pete's moves close to her:

If they don't want Illegal Pete's there, then they can send them this way to open one closer to Southlands. We will take it.

What do you think of the controversy? Post your thoughts below, or join the discussion already under way here.

Patricia Calhoun co-founded Westword, Denver’s News and Arts weekly, in 1977; she’s been the editor there ever since. She’s a regular on the weekly Colorado Public Television roundtable Colorado Inside Out, the former president of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies -- a post that got her an unexpected interview with former President Bill Clinton in front of a thousand people (while she was in flip-flops) -- and played a real journalist in John Sayles’s Silver City.